Manipulating Puppet Or Mannequins Patents (Class 352/54)
  • Patent number: 9242379
    Abstract: The subject matter described herein includes methods, systems, and computer readable media for producing realistic camera motion for stop motion animation. One method includes moving an object in a first space, wherein at least a portion of the movement is effected by human or other living organism. The method further includes tracking motion of the object as the object is moved in the first space and generating corresponding tracked motion data. The method further includes generating, using the tracked motion data, robot control information for controlling a robot to move a physical stop motion animation camera in a stop motion animation set. The method further includes controlling, using the robot control information, the robot to move the stop motion animation camera in the stop motion animation set.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 9, 2015
    Date of Patent: January 26, 2016
    Assignee: THE TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNYSYLVANIA
    Inventor: Joshua Peter Mosley
  • Patent number: 7667767
    Abstract: A system and method are described for performing motion capture on stop-motion animated characters. For example, a method according to one embodiment of the invention comprises: embedding phosphor within a moldable material; forming one or more stop-motion objects from the moldable material to create a first phosphor pattern; exposing the moldable material to a light source; removing the light source; and capturing the first phosphor pattern with a first set of one or more cameras.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 7, 2006
    Date of Patent: February 23, 2010
    Assignee: Onlive, Inc.
    Inventor: Stephen G. Perlman
  • Patent number: 5029997
    Abstract: An stop motion animation sequence of a tangible object is made by the steps of making a series of drawings representing three-dimensional object to be animated in various sequential positions; sequentially embodying the drawings on a projection medium such as motion picture film or video; displaying the projection medium at real time to see if the motion depicted by the drawings is the desired motion; and repeating the foregoing steps until the desired motion is realized. Once the drawings depicting the desired motion are completed, transferring each drawing onto a transparent material such as celluloid (commonly used in animated cartoons) so that an identical series of drawings representing the object in the various sequential positions thereby exists on the transparencies.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 16, 1989
    Date of Patent: July 9, 1991
    Inventor: Philippe Y. C. Faroudja
  • Patent number: 4913539
    Abstract: The disclosed invention takes advantage of the fact that the speech information and processing needed for successful animation lip-synching is actually much less than the information and processing which is needed for identifying individual words, as in the traditional speech recognition task, The disclosed embodiment utilizes linear prediction to obtain speech parameters which can be used to identify phonemes from a limited set corresponding to visually distinctive mouth positions. In the disclosed embodiment there is set forth an apparatus for producing lip-synching for a spoken sound track. Means are provided for storing, for each of a number of mouth positions, an unvoiced phonetic information representation associated with a mouth position. Means, responsive to samples of sound from the sound track, are provided for generating unvoiced phonetic information signals for the samples.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 4, 1988
    Date of Patent: April 3, 1990
    Assignee: New York Institute of Technology
    Inventor: John P. Lewis
  • Patent number: 4214823
    Abstract: A control system for an animation stand including a stored program computer for monitoring and storing a plurality of manually produced positions of a camera and a support relative to each other and for calculating a plurality of driver command signals from said stored positions and stored time frame or control data to produce a sequence of motions of said camera and said support relative to each other. A manually induced velocity vector is used by the computer to calculate driver command signals to effectuate the manually produced positions. Each axis of motion per time frame may be individually manually produced.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 22, 1979
    Date of Patent: July 29, 1980
    Inventor: Eric K. Pritchard
  • Patent number: 3970379
    Abstract: A system and method for producing an animated motion picture in which the scene contents for the next succeeding frame in a plurality of sequential picture frames may be aligned with respect to the previous frame scene content prior to the photographic recording of the next succeeding frame utilizing a scene registration layout transparency projection having indicia thereon indicating each of the positions of at least the character objects and the scenic objects for each of the frame contents comprising the animated motion picture scene to provide a projection of the complete scene layout and sequential character object movement for a predetermined animated motion picture scene format. The scene registration layout projection is projected onto the stage upon which the scene is to occur between the photographic recording of each of the frames.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 2, 1974
    Date of Patent: July 20, 1976
    Inventor: Tobe T. Fedder